I'm Steemit's Content Director
Hello Steemians, my name is Andrew Levine, and I’m Steemit’s Content Director. In today’s post I want to tell you a little bit about who I am and what I’m doing as Steemit’s Content Director. As someone who has been part of the Steem community since the very beginning, I understand the important position that Steemit Inc has in the minds of Steem users as well as the curiosity people have with respect to how the company operates.
My History
Like many in the cryptocurrency space, the formative moment of my adult life was the discovery of Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper. Maybe it was the 2008 financial crisis, maybe it was my long time interest in economics and investing, but I was immediately gripped by the revelation of the new possibilities created by a system which could create money without a central bank.
Though I followed along with the space, tried mining some Bitcoin (very little), and even integrated a litecoin clone into my startup (GiverHub) back in 2012, I had difficulty getting passionate about any particular protocol. While the technical accomplishments were fascinating, it was difficult to envision how any of these protocols would directly influence my life … until I found Steem.
Becoming a Content Creator
Though I had become a lawyer, gone into real estate, and started my own company (and ended it), I had always wanted to be a content creator. I began shooting video in college and began writing blogs in law school. After law school I experimented with doing standup comedy and shooting short films.
I’m actually still quite happy with those efforts--even though they are super embarrassing--and despite the fact that they achieved no success whatsoever. In fact, I am now grateful for that lack of success. It forced me to keep experimenting with different art forms and media. This process led me to acquire a wide set of skills with respect to content creation that have been hugely beneficial during my tenure at Steemit.
Insights From Failures
There were a few reasons why I don’t think those efforts bore much fruit. The first was certainly that I was an amateur. The second was that it was difficult to see the end goal. I wanted to discuss interesting topics. I wanted to explore deep concepts. The internet seemed like such a promising tool with respect to finding people all over the world who found those same concepts and topics interesting, but that didn’t seem to be how the internet was evolving.
Because there was no trust mechanism built into the internet, people really only felt comfortable interacting with people they already knew (and trusted) in the real world. Because there was no value mechanism built into the internet, content creators felt the only way to “succeed” was by creating content that got millions of views which would then (theoretically) enable them to sell some ads. None of this was especially appealing to me.
It is only with the benefit of hindsight that I understand what I was experiencing throughout that process. After all, it was through this very process--through the failures and the successes--that I was able to understand what was happening to the content economy and the internet more broadly.
Then, one day, I was introduced to steemit.com. That was almost 2 years ago now.
I suspected it might be exactly what I had been looking for and proceeded to journey down the proverbial “rabbit hole.” What I discovered down that rabbit hole wound up exceeding my expectations, something I began to discuss in videos that were graciously rewarded by other Steemians.
What followed were the most productive months of my life. Powered by Steem, I created more content in days than I had created in my entire life. I could write volumes about that time. About the communities that we formed and the amazing people I got to know--many of whom I still consider friends. People like @kevinwong, @lukestokes, and @donkeypong, to name just a few.
Eventually many of us met at the first ever SteemFest. If you’d like to get a glimpse of what that experience was like you can check out the following video I made at the end of the first day. Look closely and you’ll see some now well-known Steemians like @nanzo-scoop, @mrs.steemit, and @allasyummyfood, all of whom have continued to accomplish so much in this space.
Community Liaison
Soon after SteemFest I began working with Steemit as their Community Liaison and even got to visit the team in the mythical “office above the lawnmower store.” Over the course of the next year--due to the fact that I was the only non-engineer on the team--I was given the opportunity to work on a wide variety of tasks; basically anything that wasn’t worth an engineer’s valuable time.
As Community Liaison I viewed it as my responsibility to ensure that the voice of the community was heard inside the walls of the company. But once I was inside the company it became clear that--as is the case with most successful startups--there was much more that needed to be done and no one within the company wore just a single hat.
It was the most challenging year of my life, and while challenges inevitably come with a certain amount of stress, I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for anything. During that time we were often faced with the dilemma of whether to work on a problem, or talk about working on a problem, and often times we had to choose the former. Through these trials I saw first hand the caliber of the individuals I was working with at Steemit. These are the kindest, most diligent, most intelligent, hardest working, people I have ever had the privilege of working with and now think of as friends. I can't help but feel incredibly honored to be a part of this incredible team and community.
Doing v. “Tawking”
As a team, I’m proud to say that we are “doers” not “tawkers” (to quote Nassim Taleb), but we all agreed on the important need to dramatically improve our communications with Steemians and the public. That being said, we weren’t going to do this in a way that impeded our ability to produce great code. It’s not an accident we have the fastest, most transacted blockchain in the world. It’s not an accident Steem has the most real applications (i.e. applications real people actually use on a regular basis). And it’s no accident that steemit.com remains far and away the most used application on a blockchain. It’s because we have amazing engineers who are empowered to keep “doing.”
Content Director
We had to develop a system, grow our staff, and get all the necessary pieces into place that would enable us to give the kind of insight into our engineering operations that people want and need, without consuming a significant amount of engineering bandwidth. Building and overseeing this apparatus, as well as contributing to it, is my main focus as Content Director.
Unfortunately that took time, as there just aren’t that many people in the world capable of understanding what we’re working on, understanding the unique position our company is in, and capable of writing in an articulate fashion about what we do. I’m happy to say that we’ve made significant strides in this department which I hope is evidenced by our increased posting frequency. I fully expect that our output will only increase as we move forward.
Priority #1: Steem
The main reason I haven’t been communicating much through this blog over the course of the last year was that I felt there was just too much work to be done behind the scenes. Like all of us who work at Steemit, I deeply believe in the transformative potential of the Steem blockchain protocol. I love creating content more than almost anything else, but Steem is a technology that will be a paradigm shift for all content creators. That’s why, for the past year, my #1 priority was doing whatever I could to support the development of that protocol, even if it meant I didn’t get to create content under my personal account.
My Mission
I am happy to say that our content creation apparatus has sufficiently advanced to the point where there is space for me to create my own content and engage more directly with Steemians. My #1 priority remains accelerating the adoption of Steem by entrepreneurs and developers and I still believe that my work at Steemit is the best way for me to do that. That means that I will likely not be using this account to broadcast photos of my cats (that’s what instagram is for :) ), but instead use it as another venue through which to do my job. That being the case, I will be declining rewards on my posts.
My goal with this post was to give you a sense of who I am, what I’ve been up to, and let you know my plans for this blog. My hope is that it will be another way for Steemians (or non-Steemians for that matter) to gain a deeper insight into what we’re working on and how we view the space, as well as provide another channel through which you can engage with the team. I genuinely believe that the next year is going to be even more exciting than the last, and I look forward to communicating with you all as we move through these transformative times together. Thank you for reading.
Andrew Levine
Content Director, Steemit
Thank you for reaching out and throwing us a bone.
I have some hard-hitting questions that has been weighing heavily on us. There is very limited information coming out of STEEM Inc. and I feel the community need answers.
First of all, some advice to communicate back to STEEM Inc.
What we need is an official website that is regularly updated to keep the community informed.
We need an official webpage ran by STEEM Inc. with up to date information, roadmap, upcoming events, rules, investor information, STEEM Inc. official bios, and Node status. Google any other coin for an example on how to do it. It is pretty straight forward.
One problem is cheetah. They seem to have a spam campaign for spammers. The anti-spam system has become the spam. They also have guidelines that are different from the Steemit welcome's page. How is that? People follow the rules per the Steemit welcome page and then get blacklisted by cheetah. What gives? Now they get spammed everytime they blog by cheetah. I have had friends leave Steemit because of this. One other major investor is ready to back out because of this. I've been trying to convince her to stick with it. It is not easy. The problem is misinformation and different opinions.
We also need SBD listed on a major multilingual exchange. Wanna know why growth is slow? German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and many other people that don't speak English or Korean are just left out. They don't have an exchange that they can take their SBD earnings and exchange it. For them, dealing with the STEEM/SBD currency is not convenient and may be the deciding factor in weather or not to use Steemit, Dlive, Dtube, Busy, etc. STEEM Inc. needs to include the rest of the world to be competitive and foster growth. The marketplace just doesn't do it. there is no other options except STEEM and SBD. Even then the trading volume is so low, they may take forever to sell their SBD. One other mention is the market is the worst exchange I've had ever experienced. It is downright awful.
What is the official information on why HitBTC and Poloniex suddenly stopped all STEEM and SBD transactions back in January?
What is being done to get STEEM and SBD on more exchanges?
Sorry for being so blunt. Just need STEEM Inc. to answer instead of leaving us in the dark.
Can you let me know what needs to be updated on the welcome page to prevent this?
What is wrong with BlockTrades? It should work for everyone.
This is something you would need to contact the exchanges about.
As a witness, I have reached out to multiple exchanges. I know from my experience, that exchanges require these types of conversations to remain private, which means this is a question that can't really be answered. STEEM has been listed on quite a few exchanges recently. That should tell you something.
Thanks @timcliff. We are just left in the dark, at least until you responded. For that, I'm deeply grateful.
I do understand that prior announcements of listings will cause pump and dump which is why it should remain secret. We just need to know if someone is working on it. Bolocktrades = high fees. There should be options. I have options because I speak English and I can go to bittrex. For everyone else, I really feel that they are being neglected. I much appreciate you reaching out to exchanges. That is what we really need.
I have to disagree with you on this one. Those exchanges are not going to listen to me. They are not going to respond. That is going to require @ned or someone high up to have that conversation. @poloniex has about $44 Million dollars of STEEM and SBD tied up in their account. What happened? did they loose the keys to $44 Million dollars? Do they need help getting their account recovered? They are negatively affecting price of STEEM and SBD. I think it would warrant a phone call at the least.
Again, I'm grateful you responded!
All communication that takes place with exchanges is going to remain private. It is understandable that you are asking about it, but I am just letting you know how it is and not to expect a response.
Their team is not incompetent. You should not assume that just because conversations are not being made public that conversations are not taking place.
I hate to say it, but when you have people asking for answers for literally months, and get literally zero responses or feedback, one tends to assume either incompetence or bad news. It would be nice to be proven wrong, rather than simply being told they are not incompetent. Personally, I don't go anywhere near Poloniex and haven't for about a year, because they don't give any explanations about why they just up and halt all Steem transactions. It's well and good to say that all of these conversations remain private, but frankly we don't even know they are happening. I'm really glad I got out of Poloniex and HitBTC when I did, because zero communication in the crypto world usually means you just lost all your coins.
Hey man tell @ned thanks for making more posts and for coming into voice chat discord with @mughat and for talking and responding to people on His SMT telegram group, (like how i had to get a response from him to dispell FUD article from "icoexaminer" "fake news site saying ned was leaving steemit, and made a post about it showing him confirming chat hes not leaving)
and so yeah its importanmt we hear from ned right now with the price this low
the price is the most important thing sometimes, sorry its true though, i wish it wasnt but people just care about their investment and if the truth is that steem just needs some new upgrades and THE the market will react and steem price will grow... WELL we NEED to hear that frpom ned, i KNOW he cant speculate on the price but i think itd be reassuring from SOMEONE to explain all the reasons why steem COULD be worth very high as a cryptocurrency I think THAt would be responsible and prudent, because to not reassure users is a lil risky.... letting them have to just deal with low price on their own and come to terms iwth it on thri OWN is risky... some cant handle it and will panmic powerdown and sell... especially after ned powers downm.. because peopel dont know the difference between a sell and a power down and that they are completely different and powering down doenst mean at all someone will sell.....ned is just using that steem for othe rprojects like @brixtongg some im guessing music project? Anyway music SMT sounds cool and anyway, i am SURE the projects neds powering down to fund are going to HELP steem, but people NEED to know that!
I know ned cant talk about secret new projects but his wallet is public so he should write a post explaining how the icoexaminer article claiming he is leaving, is all fud and wrong......i know it sucks ned has to make refrebnce to a new secrety project but he can just at least ensure people that hes not trying to sell his stake and its DEFINITELY not HALF of his stake as the fake news article on icoexaminer claims
anyway thanks fopr the constant engagement with the users man!
u came from the users as an organic DEDICATED user and we love that about you tim!
Hiring from "within" like you and Inertia were some of the best decisions ned made in terms of hiring that I know about :)
Ned would not be able to make any public statements that could affect the price without running a serious risk of committing a crime. Given his position, it would likely be seen as market manipulation.
Regarding his power-down he did make a reply here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatageek/hey-ned-can-you-please-comment-about-the-power-down
Yes, @Cheetah has bothered me, and there are many bots and things we can talk about. We can always try to reform Cheetah and the other bots and the systems. Some bots and some people have accused me of spam. They put me on blacklists on Steemit. I told people about it and made it through it, it seems. Not too sure of the details and it does discourage new users. I've been banned on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, on many websites, social networks, many times, for many years. So, I've learned how to deal with it but not everybody may be like me. So, I understand that Steemit is tough to learn and live through, especially the first month or so for new users.
I have used Bittrex for SBD and there may be other exchange markets out there as well.
It would be nice if there were official rules to follow and cheetah also used those rules to determine bad content. Instead, they are changing their own criteria and leaving a wake of destruction.
There are only 2 major exchanges that support SBD.
#1 Bittrex, However Bittrex only supports English language.
#2 UpBit, However UpBit only supports Korean language.
That is my point about the language barrier. Most people that already speak and understand English don't think twice about SBD on exchanges, because they aren't impacted. Everyone else has the problem.
There's Blocktrades too. And also, Bittrex is unavailable to certain countries now, I don't remember the whole list, but parts of the middle east and India, I think. They just up and closed those people's accounts with a "too bad, so sad" blaséness about it. 😬
Isn't Binance considered a major exchange?
I think you are right in asking so many important questions. There are many more questions too. What exactly has the Content Director been doing under the hood all this time, unrelated to creating/directing content? I almost laughed when I saw the title because I thought there was no such thing as a steem content director.
Binance doesn't support SBD and they are a major multilingual exchange. SBD listing on Binance is exactly what we need.
Binance is a major exchange but doesn't support SBD yet
This comment is too long and too off topic, therefore I am not responding and muting the user so that I will no longer see anything they post ever. Short and to the point questions are always welcome, though I would prefer they are also on topic (which this comment is not). My blog is not an opportunity for people to air all of their grievances with the platform. I am here to engage with considerate users. This user is not considerate and now has lost the opportunity to engage with me.
I just want to point out the irony of your statement.
As a content director responsible for ensuring "production of Content coming out of Steemit Inc", and yet your first official public interaction as content director is to make a statement to ignore the people that have concerns and suggestions about content coming out of Steemit Inc.
I'm just asking the questions that everyone has. I'll let the readers read through the comments and determine who is being inconsiderate.
so having Steem on binance is not good enough for you?? its only one of the biggest exchanges in the world.
I will support that a website might not be a bad idea, with a little bit more information for the layman to be able to understand what is going on. There seems to be a bit more coming out of the Steemit Inc what information is concerned and that is only positive.
But they are very hard to reach. For example I am part of a team that is organizing a conference here in the crypto valley in Zug and I wanted to reach Steemit inc to see if they could send a speaker but they are a closed box and nothing ever came back from my inquiries. I even send an invitation to @Anrarchy /Andrew Levine on linkedin with a message explaining. No message back, nothing and that was disappointing (invitation still pending by the way).
I have been here a while as well and had an early run in with cheetah, like 7 months ago and nothing since. So i did not know things had gotten that bad. And for Europe, I would say that most people that are in crypto understand enough English to handle an exchange. It would be an added small boost to get a few more but I doubt it will make that big a difference until the overall issue is fixed that we do not have a big enough to constitute a steem middle class.
There are 1% accounts (roughly everything over 500SP) and the minnows and a lot of the SP is sticking to the top and not flowing down fast enough. And then what is flowing down is taken out instead of being powered up.
Binance doesn't support SBD. You have to understand that the language barrier is going to limit new accounts and potential investors. The value of STEEM is tied to the number of active users. If you exclude all the people that don't know English or Korean, then that is a huge population. On the currency side, you have to consider that most people pick an exchange that they like and stick with it. Therefore, they are limited to whatever that exchange has. SBD is just not available which makes it useless as a currency. Other currencies have dedicated staff working aggressively to get their currency listed on exchanges . What is STEEM Inc. doing? Nothing?
STEEM is severely deficient with the number of exchanges it is listed on. Compare it to all the other currencies in the top 50 and you will see there is a problem. Remember you have to subtract Poloniex and HitBTC. They both have stopped supporting transfers back in January. When you take those exchanges out of the picture, the number of exchanges that STEEM is listed on is downright dangerous.
Hi @felander, I'm sorry I was unable to respond to your invitation. Unfortunately, we are incredibly busy and get a lot of those types of messages. I do read every message I receive and I encourage people to email me at [email protected]. I read all of my e-mails, unfortunately I can't respond to them all and do my job. Thanks for the invite though!
well could you please revisit the proposal, I will send you a new message, we have a slot open and would really like to have someone from steem there if possible
resent through linkedin
I saw @cheetah go after a post that quoted a Bible verse. It seems they found similar content...seriously?
They have picked a tough nitch, and may need to add a little more thought to their program.
Yep, cheetah needs to go. The very name makes an accusation, and the accusation is often false but it kills a newby post dead as a door-nail. When I complained I got told "It just upvoted you" but it was the LAST upvote the post got and I see it happen on pretty much every post it "upvotes."
I am just really glad to see that more people from behind the scenes have started communicating with the public. It is good to have a name and face with this big entity known as Steemit. There have been lots of problems over the 300 days or so that I have been here, but there have alos been lots of solutions, lots of fixes and lots of success. Keep up the solid effort behind the scenes.
Welcome to Steem Community @andrarchy! As a gentle reminder, please keep your master password safe. The best practise is to use your private posting key to login to Steemit when posting; and the private active key for wallet related transactions.
In the New Steemians project, we help new members of steem by education and resteeeming their articles. Get your articles resteemed too for maximum exposure. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch
I still remember your early posts really well talking about the steem economics and potential in a more non-technical way. They really helped me see things in a different light and motivated me to do better myself. We had some great talks early on as well and I can't think of anyone better to fit the role you currently have in the Steemit team!
Thanks man! I appreciate that. Can you believe how old those are now? Seems like a lifetime ago and yesterday all at the same time.
Yes lol, I've talked with many about this phenomenon on Steem before, time moves in a weird way here. :D
The improvements in recent communications has not gone unnoticed! It is really nice to be seeing and hearing more of what is happening at SteemIt, Inc.!
Well done.
Thanks, glad you feel that way!
Hey!! So good to see a post from you after meeting you for the first time at the Dlive event. This was a great read - basically what you told us that night. I would still would like to chat it up sometime, you left me with a few questions haha.
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX7imy8hQabPAP9AuxdgcsEuABbeTgbfBVNsDSPjWiu5d/DSC05995.JPG)
Looking forward to some more content from you :)
Great meeting you!
Thanks! You were my beta testers ;) And great meeting you too
Great pic guys!
Oooh I remember seeing your video explaining steem a long time ago
I thought I saw @beanz there dancing on the second video.
But anyway I just wish you more success in steemit by helping the community grow and its value soar @andrarchy
Good catch!
Great to see you still out there @andrarchy and appreciate all the work you are doing for our beloved SteemIt!
If Steemit Is The Tesla Of Social Networks then Andrew, you are the Adam Levine of Steemit Inc. :-D Actually you look a lot like him. Haha!
I really admire your story. It is truly inspiring and clearly shows what persistence can do in the long run. If you had stopped after some of the failed attempts then we wouldn't be able to have this privilege to see you as the Content Director of Steemit. Even though I know you must be very busy but everyone else would agree with me when I say this, "We need to see more of such blogs from you frequently" :D Cheers to the exciting times. :)
Thanks man, that's the plan! More blogs!